About nine years ago, my mom thoughtfully bought me a pair of black workout gloves, for lifting weights. Those gloves have literally been all around the world with me - they're always in my backpack, just in case there happen to be heavy metal objects to lift at the hotel I'm staying in. A week or two ago, I moved the gloves from my backpack to my workout bag (clever, I know), worked out, went home, etc. The next day, as I'm pulling into my favorite parking spot at work, I spot a black workout glove on the ground. Same brand as mine, just sitting there. At the time, it somehow made logical sense to me that the glove was someone else's, and the best thing I could do is leave it right there for them. Later that day, glove is still there. I worked out, but it was a running day or something. Next day, I think that glove was still lying there. The following day, it was gone. Time to lift weights, check the backpack, only one glove. FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. And the worst thing is, I probably ran that poor bastard over two or three times. Sorry, Mr. Harbinger Black Workout Glove. R.I.P.
I finally got around to looking up the lyrics to Psy's "Gangnam Style" last night. I couldn't find any English translations that I liked, so I decided to make my own. Disclaimer: I don't speak Korean. It's not my first language. It's not even my second or third language. But I did used to live in Gangnam, and the Internets abound with dictionaries, so I decided to give it a go. Incidentally, this is also my first foray into Korean-English translation. The translators out there will know - translation is as much art as science. If you translate directly, you end up with overly awkward constructions. But if you vary too much from the direct translation, you risk losing the original intent. So, in some places below, I've taken some poetic license to make the translation sound better. For example, "놀 땐 노는 여자" literally means "a girl who plays when it's time to play", but I changed it to "a girl who knows how to get down"
Something similar happened to me. It actually happened to me more than once. I had my knitted hat from Roots since I was in Buffalo, NY. I wore it a lot during the winter cos it was really cold. When I got into my car, I'd take it off and put it on my lap. And twice, I totally forgot all about it, got off the car, walked home and realized two days later that I left it frozen to death on the driveway, covered by snow and hard as a stone. I actually walked past it once, thinking what the heck is that ugly thing (as it'd already become wet and black-ish) doing next to my car. I took it home and revived it with warm water and dryer, and did the same thing to it again a few weeks later.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there was last winter, I went to somewhere along central coast with my friends and I lost the hat at the parking lot of some information center, but I'm glad we were able to rescue it from bird and elephant seals. Now it's lying happily on the carpet, ready to serve.